And as a Keynesian economist who reads your piece with the same laughter that the “Laffer curve” provoked among real Keynesian economists, for your equation is merely a restatement of the Laffer curve in a more marketable but still equally unworkable equation, the weakness of that position that is the 800-lbs.-gorilla-in-the-room that gets ignored in all of this is that the “rising tides float all boats” only works until you run aground. Which is exactly where we are and was entirely predictable, worse yet, was predicted but ignored.

Your statement, and the author’s posit, makes the unworkable assumption that a middle class will go on buying things when there ceases to be a middle class. What your formula proposes is nothing less than an invitation into third world economics: a tiny über-wealthy class, a somewhat larger but still small remnant-of-the-middle-class merchant class and a vast underclass unable to buy anything other than the essentials of life and those only if they resort to an agrarian lifestyle or intense backyard farming to supplement their starvation incomes.

The only thing that is going to work in this situation is either to forgo any pretense of “directing” and “assisting” a “free market economy” with abandonment of capitalism and wholesale adoption of socialism. Or a “directed” and “assisted” “capitalist economy” to the extent of near socialism by abandoning the World Trade Association completely; renouncing all “Free Trade Agreements”; abandonment of the Federal Reserve system and replacing it with the Department of the Treasury Department’s assumption of all of the Feds former duties overseen only by the Secretary of the Treasury reporting to the President; allowing a “central planning” of all sectors of the economy unseen since WWII at a Departmental Secretary level reporting to the President; and, finally, the imposition of tariffs that account for the failure of the country of origin of the manufactured or agricultural goods or services in question to impose and enforce to our satisfaction a minimum wage, worker safety statutes, unemployment compensation statutes and workers’ injury compensation statutes, a wholly government run cradle-to-grave medical system, environmental statutes, the right of workers to bargain collectively and for the government to act as the ultimate insurer of worker safety should a collective bargaining work stoppage be necessary and any the other surcharges that puts our manufacturers on an equal footing with their manufacturers. Firms manufacturing more than 50% of their product or conducting more than 50% of their revenue generating business must be incorporated in the US. Such corporations must report all profits made abroad using the rules of our tax code to calculate profit and taxed at a margin that brings the corporate tax up to the equivalent tax paid by an equivalent corporate tax of earnings made in this country.

Should any country wishing to sell in our country impose a retaliatory tariff on our manufactured or agricultural goods that does not meet the standards set out in our tariff formula, their tariff formula on ALL of their imported goods and services would then automatically be doubled and would double again for each thirty days that they wish to impose the retaliatory tariff. This model roughly parallels the international trade form called “mercantilism” and was at turns more successful or less successful form of international trade existing before “country” lacked the impact that it does today. In a time of dire straits, it appears the only workable model to bring the essential manufacturing jobs back on-shore. “Most favored nation” status and all the other little bribes that undermine our middle class simply would not exist in the outlined formula.

It is a simple calculation of the costs incurred by manufacturers in this country imposed by the government and protected by tariff. I would love to continue our discussion of economics, but this response is already too long. Suffice it to say that anyone who would label our times as “post-Keynesian” is simply a neoliberal, “free market”, Chicago School huckster of Wizard of Oz flash-bang or is, even worse, a supply side believing, non-economist with equally bad economic theory holding forth as an economist. In either case, it provides no solution to our current dilemma which is a festering sore that will only turn gangrenous, resulting in the ultimate sacrifice or penalty, however you view this.

And as a Keynesian economist who reads your piece with the same laughter that the “Laffer curve” provoked among real Keynesian economists, for your equation is merely a restatement of the Laffer curve in a more marketable but still equally unworkable equation, the weakness of that position that is the 800-lbs.-gorilla-in-the-room that gets ignored in all of this is that the “rising tides float all boats” only works until you run aground. Which is exactly where we are and was entirely predictable, worse yet, was predicted but ignored.

Your statement, and the author’s posit, makes the unworkable assumption that a middle class will go on buying things when there ceases to be a middle class. What your formula proposes is nothing less than an invitation into third world economics: a tiny über-wealthy class, a somewhat larger but still small remnant-of-the-middle-class merchant class and a vast underclass unable to buy anything other than the essentials of life and those only if they resort to an agrarian lifestyle or intense backyard farming to supplement their starvation incomes.

The only thing that is going to work in this situation is either to forgo any pretense of “directing” and “assisting” a “free market economy” with abandonment of capitalism and wholesale adoption of socialism. Or a “directed” and “assisted” “capitalist economy” to the extent of near socialism by abandoning the World Trade Association completely; renouncing all “Free Trade Agreements”; abandonment of the Federal Reserve system and replacing it with the Department of the Treasury Department’s assumption of all of the Feds former duties overseen only by the Secretary of the Treasury reporting to the President; allowing a “central planning” of all sectors of the economy unseen since WWII at a Departmental Secretary level reporting to the President; and, finally, the imposition of tariffs that account for the failure of the country of origin of the manufactured or agricultural goods or services in question to impose and enforce to our satisfaction a minimum wage, worker safety statutes, unemployment compensation statutes and workers’ injury compensation statutes, environmental statutes, the right of workers to bargain collectively and for the government to act as the ultimate insurer of worker safety should a collective bargaining work stoppage be necessary and any the other surcharges that puts our manufacturers on an equal footing with their manufacturers. Firms manufacturing more than 50% of their product or conducting more than 50% of their revenue generating business must be incorporated in the US. Such corporations must report all profits made abroad using the rules of our tax code to calculate profit and taxed at a margin that brings the corporate tax up to the equivalent tax paid by an equivalent corporate tax of earnings made in this country.

Should any country wishing to sell in our country impose a retaliatory tariff on our manufactured or agricultural goods that does not meet the standards set out in our tariff formula, their tariff formula on ALL of their imported goods and services would then automatically be doubled and would double again for each thirty days that they wish to impose the retaliatory tariff. This model roughly parallels the international trade form previously called “mercantilism” and was at times very successful form or less successful form of international trade existing before “country” lacked the impact that it does today. In a time of dire straits, it appears the only workable model to bring the essential manufacturing jobs back on-shore. “Most favored nation” status and all the other little bribes that undermine our middle class simply would not exist in the outlined formula. It is a simple calculation of the costs incurred by manufacturers in this country imposed by the government and protected by tariff.

I would love to continue our discussion of economics, but this response is already too long. Suffice it to say that anyone who would label our times as “post-Keynesian” is simply a neoliberal, “free market”, Chicago School huckster of Wizard of Oz flash-bang or is, even worse, a supply side believing, non-economist with equally bad economic theory holding forth as an economist. In either case, it provides no solution to our current dilemma which is a festering sore that will only turn gangrenous, resulting in the ultimate sacrifice or penalty, however you view this.

You have my deepest heartfelt sympathy for having to endure such morons, Allison. I wonder if they paid attention in high school biology? I also wonder when we became a nation willfully ignorant concerning science. If there is any way that you can be provided with the child that you so clearly want, I do hope that such a way can be discovered.

As for Mr. Akin, I do know that there IS a cure for stupid. And it has certain requirements: a. a functioning, educable brain freed of stupid, preconceived notions that education or lack thereof instilled on that brain, and; b. that you try hard enough. So Mr. Akin, instead of implications that women who do get pregnant wanted it that way and women who don’t get pregnant want it that way, why don’t you try the cure for stupid. Because, men who make stupid remarks wanted to be stupid and men who don’t make stupid remarks don’t want to be stupid. Because belief in the first part of the equation results in the absolute certainty of the first part of the conclusions and the absolute desperate need for the cure for the stupidity: a functioning, educable brain.

Two comments.
One, the observation in the Kaiser white paper that Native Americans aren’t penalized. Why? Because they have truly universal coverage already.
Two, Obama and his band of Wall Street and Chamber of Commerce whores stalled around long enough that they never even had to try to make an effort toward universal coverage. When you are in bed with Big Pharma before the bill is even written, do you really think that universal coverage is going to emerge? If you do, I have a beautiful bridge in Charleston Harbor, hardly used, that I can sell you, very reasonably.
Obama is a total failure and the only thing that will save him is that he is the Not Gingrich, Not Santorum, Not Romney or whomever the Hell else emerges from the Repugnantcan sandbox.

And now, boys and girls, welcome to the wonderful world of indefinite detention, where you have no right to habeus corpus, no right to know the charges against you, no right to be tried by a civilian court, and you too can be sent to Guantanamo. Isn’t that SPECIAL! (for those of you who can remember the Church Lady). And your Democratic House members and the Democratic Senators voted for it, too. And the Democratic President signed it! Be afraid! Be very afraid!

This one will make the bones of whoever gets the corporate media to notice and start yapping about it. Herman Cain should be going to jail as well as the mysterious donors who gave the campaign $40,000 to get going. No accounting for it, no declarations for it, now disclosures. Just boom! $40,000 to get started. The penalty for that is 10 years in jail and a massive fine. Both for the recipient and the donor. Unfortunately the story broke the same day as the sexual harassment story broke. So you know where the corporate media went like a dog after a dropped filet Mignon. After all, Sex sells. Even if it was only verbal sex and harassment and it involved a settlement with a confidentiality agreement, the were panting around this and ignoring the real story. Someone REALLY needs to go after this. It broke in Salon or one of the other big online news sites. But the drum needs to be beaten repeatedly or Herman will skate on this. As will the Koch Brothers who we all know gave that seed money illegally.

It would be nice if the AFL-CIO would send the President a list of all the labor leaders murdered by the Panimanian government and its proxies. If its good enough for Colombia, it should apply equally to Panama.

The next time the police show up at your house and want to ask you ANYTHING, Alex, the next words out of your mouth should be, “Do you have a warrant for my arrest or to search my house? If not get your asses out of my house. If you do, stand right there while I call my lawyer and when he gets here, we can all proceed wherever you want to go.” It is a VERY bad idea to talk to ANY law enforcement types in these days unless you have a Rockefeller sized trust to appeal the Patriot Act’s unconstitutional provisions. EVERY law enforcement office, regardless of size, is just waiting to hit the PowerBall by arresting and convicting a “terrorist.” DHS pays them a FORTUNE in grant money for such things. And the DA’s office will have some eager-beaver lawyer wanting to make his bones on your and get his department a HUGE USDOJ grant for a terrorist conviction. And I am here to tell you that even what you think is the simplest, most innocent statement will be twisted and turned and used to convict you. It has happened and it will happen again!
BTW, the painting is really cool and I just LOVE the whole idea of the burning down the banks theme. Seems to me that there was a song about that. But that was in a time when we had civil liberties and the Supreme Court had the reins on cops.

DBB had proven what many have long suspected of his sudden “change of heart” about the way Wikileaks does business. The reason wasn’t a pang of conscience, it was a filled wallet. Bank of America would go to any scumbag lengths to stop the information contained in those documents. And they would enlist the aide of any scumbag government to do it. And they did. DBB, Open Leaks and the US alphabet soup agencies. DBB is a whore, and Der Spiegel has simply discovered what his price is!
If Germany has learned any sense of moral decency since WWII, then it will have written into its civil remedies code and perhaps its criminal penalties code a remedy that, while not making Wikileaks and Julian Assange whole from DBB and OpenLeaks and all the other MSM that joined the US’s killer organizations in trying to stop open government, at least giving Wikileaks and Assange some satisfaction.
Great Reporting, Kevin!

And accepting your premise strictly for the sake of argument, then you must simply agree that the national debt of the country means absolutely nothing. It is strictly a scorecard to keep track of what has gone on in the past years’ budgets and an aggregate of those figures. It does not serve to mark anything else. Otherwise, you are basing your premise on outdated economics and gold standard thinking.

That is if the input has a $100,000.00 check attached. I am so tired of the corporatist Democrats and the corporatist Republicans. the Tea Party was WAY out in front of liberals this time. They are tearing the structure of the GOP apart which is fine with me. Now liberals need to do the same thing with the Democratic Party or abandon it and start a third party with the forgotten people as a base. Because they sure as Hell outnumber the corporatist DINO base.

The only way out of this is to primary Obama and try damn hard to replace him with a REAL Democratic candidate. Obama is nothing but the 3rd Bush/Cheney term and that was not what he was elected for. If the primary fails, then it is time to walk out of the Democratic Party and never look back. That will simply prove that the party, like the Repugnantcans, is simply a corporatist tool. Forming a coalition of Farming, Labor and Service Sector Employees, Minorities and Middle Class Working Families with a name that is attractive to all of those groups is a viable solution and tearing the largest part of the base from the Democratic Party, just as the Tea Party is tearing apart the Repugnantcan Party, is not just a viable solution, it is the only solution.
We liberals have always thought of ourselves as the advocates of new directions and thought. Well, with the help of our ‘progressive’ DINO’s in the party undercutting us at every turn, we need to leave them behind and return the party to the ideals that kept FDR in office for 4 terms and Harry Truman in office against all of the “Talking Heads” of that time’s predictions.
In this case, the Tea Party, that is tearing apart the Repugnantcan Party, was way out in front of us liberals in the direction that the political system needed to go. The corporate system that founded the Tea Party has created a monster that they have lost control of and it is going a new direction. Liberals need to do the same in the Democratic Party side.

Hi Kevin,
I’ve been following your work for a long time and been a big fan, back to when you were in college and publishing on OpEdNews primarily. You’ve come a long way and I can’t think of anyone who deserves it more. I really look forward to this work and as soon as I can figure out the RSS for it, I will be reading it as it is updated. You know how us experienced (not old) people are with technology.
Anyway, congratulations.
Jim Hadstate

I’ve not seen projections on this, do you have a source? It’s true that Congress can change the tax burden any time they want, in fact they did this year, lowering the rate from 6.2% to 4.2% and starving the trust fund of $120 Billion. So they made the SS situation worse.alan1tx @ 32

The Congressional Budget Office has done the study of what the result would be if the cap on payroll taxes for those making over $108,000/yr and $225,000/yr were removed on the viability of Social Security and Medicare. The results were staggering. If it were done at 1970 balances of income distributions, the change would be modest, but sufficient to keep Social Security and Medicare solvent forever. If done in 2008 income distributions, the changes would be staggering and would result in Social Security and Medicare not only being solvent forever, the Clinton cuts could be undone and benefit increases of up to 10% could be given out to every recipient without affecting, even in the slightest, the solvency of the two programs.
Just thought you’d like to know. I was requested by one of the very liberal congresspersons, although I can’t recall who anymore, but with results like that, I sure as Hell can remember the results.

I am a member (for now) of AARP. When I read your original posting on this subject, I thought, “No, it can’t be. They must have misunderstood something!” So I went to the AARP website and read the “clarification” that purported to “set the record straight (their words, not mine)” for the distortions of AARP’s position on Social Security cuts in benefits. After finishing reading the “clarification” I emailed AARP and told them what a weasel-worded “clarification” that was and all it really said was that AARP was supporting cuts to Social Security Benefits.

I received the EXACT same reply as you have printed. My what a coincidence. IN a country with nearly 100 Million seniors and an organization that claims to speak for all those seniors, two of us should write the EXACT same email and request a clarification of the exact same thing at the EXACT same time. Things that make you go hmmmm!

I would suggest that President Obama go to Quantico and agree to stay in the cell for 4 weeks with Bradley Manning doing the exact same things that Bradley Manning is required to do and then tell us that it is appropriate. To dodge the question with some lame “the Pentagon told me he is being treated good and the way he is being treated is for his own good” is a non-answer and Jake Tapper should be ashamed for letting him off the hook with such a stupid and bullshit answer.

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